


Easy Prey

by hikaru



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Zombies, Blood, Gen, Horror, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-21
Updated: 2014-02-21
Packaged: 2018-01-13 05:40:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1214779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hikaru/pseuds/hikaru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will Graham is a respected scientist working on uncovering the mysteries of a deadly virus, a rapidly mutating group of infections which can turn people into zombies.  When one of the rarest strains of infection, which had been developed in Will’s lab and was previously thought to be eradicated, reappears in the general public, Will is dragged back into field work, accompanied by Hannibal Lecter, a fellow scientist on loan from the CDC.  But all is not as it seems as the outbreaks occur more frequently, with hotspots flaring up in cities Will has just left.  It’s a race against time as Will struggles to track down the source of the disease before it’s too late.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Easy Prey

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for all the handholding, and to G for the beta.
> 
> This fic is a loose retelling of Hannibal S1. Only with kind-of zombies and lots of handwaved science. 
> 
> Please, please by all means make sure you go and check out the absolutely fantastic fan art for this story by [balsaminaceae](http://balsaminaceae.tumblr.com/post/77339568425/hannibal-au-easy-prey-by-hikaru-for-the-hannibal)! It is breathtaking and chilling and totally perfect for what I've written.

 

> _Project Resurrection: Day 563_  
>  _Log Update Time: 14:37  
> _ _Neurological Research Lab  
> _ _Logged by W. Graham_
> 
> **_Summary_ **
> 
> _Subject 346A shows no improvement. His movement is erratic, and he appears to be slowly losing motor control over his limbs. He has not spoken intelligibly since day 34 of observation; his speech now consists entirely of grunts and howls. The linguistics department has had no success in finding a pattern in Subject 346A's vocalizations, both upon live observation and in review of archival recordings._
> 
> _Vaccine batch 335A-23X-06-14 continues to have no effect on Subject 346A, despite earlier success with simian subjects 564 through 583. Current protocol indicates that Subject 346A should continue to be monitored for another seven to ten days before initiation of Protocol 5B._

Will pauses to collect his thoughts, but before he can continue writing, a chat window pops up on his screen. He sighs, the long-suffering sound of someone who just wants to finish his work in peace.

 

> _Crawford, Jack (14:39:15):_ Come to my office. I have someone I'd like you to meet.

_  
_Will closes his eyes and rubs the bridge of his nose with his free hand. The last thing he wants to do is play nice with whichever well-meaning but ultimately useless colleague Jack wants to subject him to now.

 

> _Graham, Will (14:39:51):_ can this wait? in the middle of something.

Jack’s response is immediate.

 

> _Crawford, Jack (14:39:59):_ No. Now.

With a barely audible noise of disappointment, Will closes the chat window, minimizes his case log and several spreadsheets to reveal a nearly-empty desktop, and then locks his computer for good measure before stepping away from his desk.

It’s a long trip across the facility’s campus from Will’s office to Jack’s, and normally the hallway would be buzzing with activity.  In fairness, it still is, but Will’s coworkers have a habit of clearing out as soon as they see him coming.  Better to be out of the way than to accidentally inhabit his space as he hurtles down the hall, eyes locked on his tablet computer rather than having to make eye contact with anyone else.

***

“Will Graham, meet Dr. Hannibal Lecter,” Jack says as soon as Will enters the office.  “I wanted someone to consult on some of the findings of your work, and he’s one of the best.  He’s on loan to us from the CDC for now.”  

Hannibal rises in one fluid motion and extends his hand to Will in greeting.  Will ignores the extended hand and instead takes Hannibal in with one glance.  He is put off by what he sees: the glossy, well-rested, privileged exterior; the quickness to jump to his feet and establish his dominance; the dead-eyed stare he fixes on Will.  

“I don’t need his help.  You only think I do.  This is an ambush.”  Will takes two large steps backwards, edging out of the room.  “I’m going to go now.”

“ _Sit down_.”  Jack points at the empty chair in front of his desk, angled towards Hannibal.  His tone leaves no room for argument, and Will reluctantly gives in.  He sighs heavily, embracing his petulance for just a moment before taking a tentative step back into the room, his heels just resting on the edge of the industrial-grade carpet of Jack’s office.  

“A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Graham,” Hannibal says, with an accent that Will can’t quite place.  “I’ve heard much about you from your esteemed colleague, Dr. Bloom.”

Will frowns; he doesn’t like the way that Alana’s name drips from Hannibal’s lips.  There’s a lilt to his tone which makes Will supremely uncomfortable.  He eventually bothers to spare a glance towards Hannibal’s extended hand and grimaces, the tiniest downturn twitch of his lips, and then proceeds to sidestep any sort of social niceties, sinking down to sit on the chair instead.  It is both an admission of defeat and a long-standing sort of defiance, all in one series of actions.  “What is this really about, Jack?”

Jack continues with their meeting, content to ignore Will’s somewhat childish outburst for now.  “Just what I said, Will.  You and I both know that your subjects have been exhibiting some incredibly atypical results, both neurologically and behaviorally, and that similar reports are starting to roll in from labs across the country.  Dr. Lecter is a leader in the field of neurology and psychology of the similarly afflicted.  I was hoping that you and he could work together on your existing subjects, perhaps do some field work.”  Jack suggests this innocently enough, but Will knows better.

“I’m not going back out in the field.”  Will is adamant.  “And I don’t need his help.”

“Yes, you are, and yes, you do,” Jack counters.  “You’re in this too deep, you’re in your lab too much.  Your best work has always been out in the field, and I want you back there.”

“You remember why I stopped making _house calls_ , right, Jack?”  Will is pale, clammy, a sheen of sweat beading up across his forehead.  He doesn’t like this conversation, and he wants it to stop.

Jack bypasses the question.  “New outbreaks in previously cleared areas are occurring almost daily.  Your work here is good, but your work out there is better.  Case closed.  Start handing off your current subjects to your lab assistants.  We’ll have a field work briefing next week.  Now, out.”

***

Will knows how to play nice.  He’s been doing it for years, working in Jack Crawford’s orbit.  He doesn’t want to play nice with Hannibal Lecter, but he knows that if he doesn’t put in at least the minimum effort to work with the other man, that it will get back to Jack, and Jack will proceed to rain hell down on Will until he gives in, which is why Will bothered to accept Hannibal’s invitation to stop by his newly assigned office for a chat.

It is an invitation that Will regrets accepting almost immediately as he grinds his way through Hannibal’s inappropriately probing questions.

Hannibal leans back in his chair: not a slouch, never anything that uncouth, but he relaxes just enough to exude comfort and a sense of belonging in his surroundings, his borrowed office, his made-up work assignment. “My superiors at the CDC don’t just let me take on these sorts of vague consulting jobs, you know, Will.  We have people much more junior than I who are usually offered up in my stead, but when Jack Crawford called and said that he wanted to borrow me to work with the legendary Will Graham, well, the assignment came through almost immediately.”  

He smiles, like he’s already caught Will out at something inappropriate -- bad research or flawed data or made-up statistics -- which Will knows is utterly impossible.  His reports sometimes make initial logical leaps that are correct but unexplainable, but he is never, ever wrong.  “There must be something extraordinarily special about a proposal for me to give up my time, you must know.  So.  What makes you so special, Will Graham?” Anyone else would likely insert sarcasm into the phrase, Will thinks; he certainly hears it enough in his life from others, and it usually drips with a spiteful disdain that he finds nearly routine by now. But Hannibal asks the question with a mild sort of curiosity, a hint of interest. Will isn’t used to people _caring_ , not without ulterior motives.

“You don't know me very well, Dr. Lecter,” Will says, before a rough, self-deprecating laugh escapes him. “There's nothing special about me.”

“Nothing at all?” Hannibal arches his eyebrows, an almost imperceptible lift.

Will shakes his head. “Nothing special. Ah, just crazy. Jack thinks I need a babysitter. You won the lottery this time around.” Only because there is too much history between he and Alana, Will reminds himself. Alana, who is too unconvinced by Will's research but also too unnerved by Will's uncanny habit of being right about the worst case scenario to ever even want to be alone with him, let alone participate in a Crawford-orchestrated 24/7 Will-Watch this time around.

“And do you?” Hannibal inclines his head ever so slightly towards Will.

Will doesn’t answer the question. Instead, he looks away from Hannibal and focuses his gaze on the artwork hanging on the wall.  Hannibal has already made himself at home, covering the walls of his office with meticulously detailed pencil sketches. “People are getting sick and I can't stop it. People are turning into monsters, or dying horrible, gruesome deaths, and I can't stop it. I can only watch while our research get used against us. I look at them and it's like I can see their whole life playing out in front of me– their life before _our_ sickness. Jack sees Subject 346A, but I see Alexander Markowitz, who played soccer and married his high school sweetheart and had three kids and a book deal before our work _took_ that from him. I don't see a mindless something that wants to rip me limb from limb, I just see a man who wants his life back.”

“You feel responsible.”

“I _am_ responsible.” There is a vehemence in Will's voice that only rarely creeps in these days; usually he just sounds weary, resigned. “I created this sickness.”

“You, and an entire team of other scientists, Will, who had their life's work stolen by a traitor, a terrorist. This is not your cross to bear.”

“Let it be,” Will says. He looks in Hannibal's direction, but fails to meet his eyes. “It's what keeps me coming back every day.”

“And what would be the alternative?”

“Is this a therapy session? Jack told me you’re here to get inside of the heads of our subjects, not me. I don't need you inside of my head. I have too much – I don't – Jack is _wrong_ about me.”

Hannibal spreads his hands open in front of him, palms up, placating. “Think of this as a conversation, Will, with a neutral party, with someone who will not judge you. I have no need to pick your brain apart. I simply wish to provide you with some alternatives to sitting alone in your laboratory, working twenty-hour days.” Hannibal drops his hands back to his lap, folding one atop the other and watches as Will considers this.

“I could leave this job, you know, just walk away. Move to Alaska, or to Nunavut, I don’t know, just somewhere the infection hasn't reached yet, somewhere that the virus isn’t sustainable. Breed sled dogs and build my own log cabin, with my own two hands. I could leave this clean-up, this search for a cure to someone else, and hope it never comes back to haunt me.”

“But it already haunts you.”

Will's answer is immediate. “Yes. It's too late for me to step away, because this has already infiltrated every part of my life. I close my eyes and instead of sleeping, I see the day's treatment logs scrolling past. The casualty reports. The personnel notices, when another one of us has a laboratory accident, or an accidental exposure in the field. I worked with Constance on this for two years and it was her own mother-in-law whose sickness went undetected, who got Constance sick. This is why I don't need you in my head, Dr. Lecter; I already have too much in there in the first place.” Will takes off his glasses and absently wipes at the lenses with his sleeve. “Are we done here? It's almost time for the techs to feed Subject 346A, and they're not allowed to do it without supervision.”

Hannibal gestures towards the door. “We're finished for now, Will. But would you mind if I accompanied you to watch the feeding? It's been far too long since I've done the day-to-day work in a lab.”

Will smiles, but it comes off as twisted, a bit sickly. “I suppose,” he said. “But I hope you have a strong stomach, Doctor. The subject’s infection is so far advanced that he takes his meals live.”

***

Hannibal becomes a regular presence in Will’s lab, despite Will’s objections, of which there were many.  (“His suits cost more than I make in a year,” Will mutters at home over a glass of cheap whisky, where no one can hear him complain except for his pack of once-stray dogs.  “Sure, his ideas are fine, but his presence is infuriating, distracting.”  The dogs answer by way of soft snuffles and yips, asking politely to please go play fetch before Will falls into a restless sleep.)  Will’s complaints hold no water with Jack, however.  Jack, who makes vague proclamations about how Hannibal is supposed to help Will find a new level of clarity in his research, but who seems to be more interested in using Hannibal to sniff out Will’s neuroses and weak points than anything else.

What Will doesn’t want to admit -- hates to admit even to himself, let alone anyone else he comes in contact with -- is that Hannibal is stunningly, surprisingly helpful while he takes up space in Will’s lab.  It takes time for the two of them to learn to exist in the same space, but eventually, Will stops feeling as though Hannibal is breathing down his neck, waiting for him to make a critical error, and feels instead as though he could actually be a trusted partner in his research.

"What did you think about this latest batch of test results?" Will asks, almost hesitantly.  He doesn't look up from the microscope he's hunched over.  He doesn't need to; he knows full well that Hannibal is still staring at him from across the desk in that unnerving fashion of his.

"I thought they were concerning," Hannibal answers.  Will glances up briefly to see Hannibal pulling Subject 536G's file from the rack.  "It showed a strain--"

" _She_ ," Will interjects.  "536G is a woman.  Nicole Anderson.  Advertising executive, godmother to her late brother’s children, MBA candidate at NYU.  She was visiting family friends in Minneapolis when she began showing symptoms of the first stages of infection."

Hannibal puts the folder down and folds his hands on top of it.  "You know all of their personal histories, don't you?"  He sounds sincere.  Most people are unnerved or unsettled by Will's penchant for knowing too much about his test subjects.  Hannibal seems to find it fascinating.

"Yes."  Will wheels his chair away from his workstation and slides towards the rack of current subject files.  "Like I said, they're still _people_ and they deserve our respect.  I use the numbers because that’s lab protocol, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it."

"Then why give them numbers at all?"

"You don't need me to answer that question for you.  I highly doubt they do things any differently at the CDC."

"No, but humor me, Will. Think of it as a philosophical question."  Hannibal is clearly delighted by this line of conversation.  Will realizes just how much time they've been spending together, that he can even tell that Hannibal is delighted.  He’s a difficult person to read, but Will has experience with difficult types.  It's only a slight widening of the other man's eyes, the tiniest of twitches at the corners of his lips, that tells Will that Hannibal is anything other than bored.

"Giving them numbers makes it too easy to make all of this too ... too clinical, too removed from the human element of the infection.  But I can’t stop myself from doing it, from learning their lives, histories.  I tried, when I first started working on all of this, but it was impossible.  I’m drawn to it, not in a morbidly curious way, but … it’s like I see their lives through their eyes.  Sometimes, it’s as though I don’t even need to read the file to know their story.  It’s not … not scientific, it’s not logical, I can’t explain it.  It’s intuitive. It’s _human_.  Most staff here find it too difficult, too distracting to have exposure to the human element.  Most of the labs have one goal, and that's finding a vaccine or a treatment.   You don't need to know someone's life story to root out the weaknesses of the virus.  It’s generally considered to be _unimportant_."  Will runs his fingers across the tabs at the tops of the subject folders on the rack.  The folders are overwhelmingly marked with red tabs, indicating unsuccessful treatment in the lab.  Unsuccessful treatment indicates death.  He watches Hannibal out of his peripheral vision, gauging his subtle reactions.  

"Most labs are looking for a treatment. But that's not what you're looking for?"

Will hesitates before responding.  "Officially, I am."

"And, unofficially?"

Will's fingers hover over the folder for Subject 245B.  He doesn’t even need to open it to know the case history.  Gayle Henson, eight years old, resident of Reno, Nevada.  The second person infected in her family, she went on to pass the virus to her entire second-grade class before she was rooted out as the source of the infection.  The mutated strain of the virus that Gayle carried was ultimately named after her. Henson-Reno, most prevalent in the southern United States. Casualties: 749 deaths, 1,953 total infections, and still rising, just in the course of three months.  A red tab peeks out around the edges of Gayle’s folder.  " _Unofficially_?  That depends on how much I can trust you, Dr. Lecter."

Hannibal spreads his hands wide.  “You don’t have to share anything you’re uncomfortable with, Will.  I’m just here to help you work through your research. A blank slate, for you to project your ideas on.”

Will opens Gayle Henson’s folder and flips through the photographs.  They are in reverse chronological order: they start with autopsy photos and end with candid shots of a joyful little girl playing at a park.  Will weathers the grisly autopsy photos with ease, but flinches away when he sees a younger, pre-infection Grace.  He sets the folder on the table, left open to one of Gayle in happier, healthier times.  “What am I looking for?  I’m looking for the bastards who let this infection out of the lab,” he says then, finally looking up and holding Hannibal’s gaze.  His voice is low and dangerous and it’s easy to see why most of the lab techs are terrified of Will.  

For just a split second, Hannibal smiles.

***

An urgent message from Jack commands the entire team to gather in the conference room.  Hannibal has been a regular enough fixture around the lab that his absence is conspicuous to Will, but Will reminds himself that Hannibal has other duties, other projects to work on, ones that don’t involve lending an extra air of authority to Will’s unorthodox methods.

Will settles into the chair closest to the door, snatches up a binder of documents that has been left out for him, and promptly begins aggressively ignoring everyone else in the room in favor of getting a head start on the information Jack was asking him to care about.  If Jack was going to make him go back out into the field, he was going to be _prepared_ this time.  

“Alright, everyone, let’s get started,” Jack says once the last member of the team is in the room, wasting no time in calling the meeting to order. Katz, Price, and Zeller stand at the head of the table to deliver the report that Jack insisted could not wait one minute longer.  “Show us what we’re up against.”  

Beverly Katz pulls up a map on a large screen at the front of the room, color coded to show the spread of the different strains of the infection across the United States.  “We’ve been seeing a curious pattern of infections, here,” she says as she enlarges the map to zoom in on Bloomington, Minnesota.  “CDC teams are already on the ground trying to control it.  At Dr. Lecter’s request, they’re sending us a rush sample for pathology, but the field reports are saying that whatever this is, it’s not the predominant strain they’re used to seeing up there.”

Will flips through a few pages in the binder, not even bothering to look up at the live presentation.  “So, if it’s not Marks-Valley, then what...?”

“We can’t say with 100% certainty yet.  We shouldn’t speculate.”

“Unhelpful.”  Will still refuses to look at any of the team assembled in front of him.  Instead, he lifts up his pen from the table and begins scribbling notes in the margins of the pages.  “Speculate anyway. Symptoms? Time lapse between exposure and manifestation? What strain does it most resemble?”

“Ah, well...” Katz’s voice trails off and she looks to her colleagues for support, but none of them jump in to help her.  

There’s dead silence in the conference room, punctuated by the occasional click of a pen.  Will looks up, finally, at the trio of scientists at the head of the room.  “What strain?”  He’s almost channeling Jack with his level of annoyance at them.  

Finally, Price clears his throat before reluctantly responding.  “Well, it’s technically supposed to be kind of _impossible_ , but the prelims say that it’s most likely Langley-07.”

Will stops shuffling through his binder and looks up at Price and company, murder written across his face. “Langley-07? Is this a joke?  Do you think this is funny?”  He swivels around in his chair, hurrying to get Jack in his field of vision.  “You see?  Do you see why I don’t leave my lab?  Jack, this is a waste of my time.”  He thumps the binder down on the table and stands, chair shooting out behind him.  “Stop wasting my time.  If you’ll excuse me, I have samples to run that _aren’t_ low blows like this.  Langley-07, _god_ , I’m _offended_.”

Will doesn’t realize until the moment he’s started to collect his belongings that no one has bothered to stop him mid-tirade, a role which usually falls to Jack or Alana.  “They _are_ joking, right, Jack?”

“Sit down, Will.”

“Tell me they’re joking.”  His voice takes on a desperate, ragged edge. “ _Tell_ me they’re _joking_.”

No one answers.  Jack’s lips press together in a firm line; he’s clearly weighing his next words carefully, and is reluctant to say the wrong thing to Will.  Finally, Katz breaks the silence.  “We won’t know for sure until we get the results back, but the field kits are returning all the right markers for Langley-07.”  Her voice has a tinge of sadness to it.

“No one’s seen pure Langley-07 markers in the general population in years, though,” Will says.

“Not since it got let out of _your_ lab,” Zeller interjects.  He is quickly silenced by a fierce glare from Jack. 

“Since it was _stolen_ from the lab,” Will corrects, but he’s already moved on; they don’t have time to argue the specifics of what happened years ago, no matter how desperately Will wants to get to the bottom of that mystery.  “But it mutated very quickly.  Within nine months, it was already taking on characteristics of other competing infections up and down the eastern seaboard.  We have the only remaining pure samples of that strain.  There’s _no way_ this is right.  That would mean…”

“We’ll worry about what it means later, once we get this controlled,” Jack interjects tersely.  “Will, you know how this progresses better than anybody. I want you to go up there.  Take Dr. Lecter, he’ll help coordinate with the CDC. Everyone else, back to work.  Minnesota’s going to start sending data down any minute now, and we need to get on top of this.”

The team disperses, filing out around Will, who still stands in front of his chair, his hands shaking ever so slightly as he clutches the binder to his chest.  He does not want this, but there is no other choice.

***

When the infections had begun in earnest, years ago, Will was on the front lines, visiting hot spots and tracking down Patient Zeros across the country.  For all that he disliked the actual human contact of the job, he was skilled at cutting through people’s horror over their loved one’s illnesses and getting straight to the heart of the matter.   _How many people would you say your wife came into contact with?  Did she exhibit any strange behaviors?  Growling, drooling, pounding her head against the wall? When did she start to lose control of her motor functions?  When did the word salad start? Sir, I understand this is a difficult time, but I need you to think about this very carefully.  You and your children may still be at risk for infection._

An attack by an infected man in a hot spot put Will in quarantine for months as his body tried to fight off the infection.  He was lucky that the man had a diluted strain of the infection, although Will was never quite back to 100% after that experience, and it wasn’t something he liked to be reminded about now.  It was just another weakness in a man whose very personality traits were seen as weaknesses by everyone else around him.  Will saw too much, felt too much, cared too much, and closed himself off to everyone else as a result.  His time in quarantine only sealed that fate.  After that, he was damaged goods, and Jack didn’t want to put his top researcher in the line of fire any more than he had to.

Back in the lab, Will and his team tried to replicate some of the same mutation patterns they found in the outside world.  For a while, it was helpful: their experiments matched up with the patterns they were seeing outside, and on a small scale, they were able to predict what the infection would do next.  They were ready to begin attempts to engineer the virus to make it less lethal, more manageable.  Introducing a more treatable, more stable version of the virus wouldn’t be a cure, but at least it would mitigate some of the worst symptoms.  Maybe you would lose control of your limbs, but you’d still be able to speak.  Maybe you wouldn’t be able to speak, but you’d retain a level of cognitive awareness that kept you from thinking that the flesh of your loved ones was a good snack.  Baby steps, in the name of science and survival.

The seventh iteration of their experiment went awry.  The sequence of mutations changed and instead of getting easier to control, the virus got stronger, deadlier.  From a scientific point of view, Will and his colleagues were fascinated by the abrupt changes.  It gave them something to work with, a worst case scenario to imagine and prepare for.  No other lab in the country had seen such drastic results in their own testing, and the Langley-07 strain was a game changer.

The live infection was never supposed to leave the confines of the lab.  It was supposed to be tightly controlled, locked down.  Will could name all of the individuals who had access to the samples, and none of them fit the profile of someone who would have deliberately released a universally fatal infection into the wild.  An investigation cast suspicion on all of them, and when one of the lab assistants went missing, the assumption was that she was responsible, and the lab’s focus shifted to damage control over pointing fingers.  

Eventually the deadly strain was controlled, through heavy exercising of the absolute right to indefinitely quarantine anyone showing the smallest of symptoms.  All signs indicated that there was no one left in the outside world who was still carrying that strain of the infection.  Scientifically, it was impossible to be infected for more than a few weeks with Langley-07 and not show severe symptoms, so it defied logic that an infection would have lain dormant for all these years.

The only logical conclusion was that someone was sabotaging Will’s work again.

If you asked Will, he would have said that he would prefer the possibility of a scientific anomaly over a little light treason, any day of the week.

***

Will almost prefers to hold conversations while driving; it means that he only has to offer the most rudimentary level of eye contact, or, in fact, care in general for his passenger’s mood or attention span or feelings.  His attention is supposed to be on the road unfolding in front of him. He doesn’t have to gauge Hannibal’s reactions, wonder what he’s thinking, wonder what else has his attention now.  He just has to get them to their destination in one piece.

“All of the infected in this outbreak have one thing in common,” Will says as he steers the rental car onto the highway.  “We just have to find out what that one thing is.”  The words sound stupid coming out of his mouth; it isn’t like Hannibal needed the job explained to him, even if he hasn’t done this type of field work in years.  “Price and Zeller already sent over their list of contacts for people who aren’t being quarantined.”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve been in the field like this,” Hannibal says.  “What is our role today?”

“We’re meeting your CDC friends at the command center,” Will says, “and then, after that, well, It’s your lucky day, Dr. Lecter.  We get to go door-to-door.”

For a very long time, the interviews are uneventful.  There are a lot of tears, wailing, protestations.  A lot of _it should have been me_ and _I swear, she just got sick out of the blue_.  But one thing Will doesn’t get out of his interviews is much insight into what could have set off this reoccurrence of what was supposed to be a very rare strain of the infection.

"This is our last stop," Will says, reaching over to rifle through the papers Hannibal is holding on his lap, until he pulls out a sheet with a long list of names. "The Hobbs family, back in Bloomington. Husband, wife, and a daughter."

"Any particular reason we've saved them for last? Or is it a simple matter of logistics?" Hannibal asks, looking first at Will's hand, fingers splayed across the typed address on the page, then back up at the other man's face. It's not like Will to initiate physical contact, even if that contact is just passing a sheet of paper back and forth. The chase is distracting him, making his walls come down in ways that he isn't aware of.

"They're closest to the airport, just a short ride back over to shoot across 494," Will points out. He glances at the address once more, then puts his eyes back on the road. "But they're last because there's something interesting about them. All of their immediate neighbors were casualties of this outbreak -- six fatalities, ten in quarantine. Based on the reports we’ve gotten, they’re practically dead center in the outbreak, but no one in the Hobbs household has reported any symptoms."

Hannibal purses his lips. "Curious, indeed. Could they have been previously exposed, built up a natural resistance?"

"If they were, they didn't seek out treatment from any center that reports it into the central databases. They either went off the grid, or they went the home remedy route."

"Perhaps they're our carriers," Hannibal muses. "Perfectly healthy, but spread death in their wake."

“It’s a possibility.  Remote, yes, but possible, you’re right.”  Will has already thought of this. "Katz is already pulling travel records for them from Homeland Security, just to see if they match up with the last time we saw this, and Price is working with local PD to reconstruct their days before this outbreak. No one in the household does any sort of work that would put them in contact with the lab version of the virus. Dad is a pipe fitter, mom stays at home, daughter is finishing up high school. No nurses, no lab techs, no virologists, not even a hint of military past in the family that even could connect them to any of the field offices."

"Fascinating," Hannibal says as he turns to fix his gaze on Will.  "Every outbreak has a starting point, and they're usually much less obscured than this one."

"It's like it came out of nowhere," Will muses.  "This area's been infection-free for the past three months, long past the point where a dormant virus would show itself.  No one we've talked to has had any exposures, no connections that would put them in contact with _any_ strains of the virus, let alone Langley-07, if that is what we're working with."

"You're still reluctant to believe that it's happening again?"

Will presses his lips together in a tight line and focuses on driving.  Blinker on, gently turn into the development where the Hobbs family lives.  "Protocol is even more strict this time around.  Everyone in the lab has been thoroughly vetted.  Other than Jack and myself, there are only three people with clearance to access the storage unit where our samples are kept.  When Riley came up missing, everyone just assumed that he was responsible, despite a lack of evidence.  There is literally no way that someone could breach that security without someone knowing about it almost instantaneously."

"I thought you would say something about the inherent good of mankind, wanting to believe the best of other people."  Hannibal's tone is flat as usual, but Will detects just a hint of teasing.

Will laughs, and it's a full sound, not the strangled, bitter chuckle he usually lets out.  His smile, for once, reaches all the way to his eyes.  "Oh, Dr. Lecter, how much time have you been spending with me?"  He swings the car into the Hobbs' driveway and pulls to a stop, then finally takes a look at Hannibal.  "Clearly it's not enough, if you think I've got any of that sort of faith left."

"You may surprise me yet, Mr. Graham," Hannibal says, with a slight nod of his head and an upwards twitch of the lips.

***

"Mrs. Hobbs, can you recall whenever you first noticed your neighbors exhibiting behavioral changes?"  Will slides a sheet of paper across the dining table and hands it to the family.  "Here’s a list of the most common outward symptoms for the virus.  Changes in temperament, motor control, and speech are all fairly common.  Do you remember the Farrells being more quick to anger, for example?  Or perhaps stumbling or being overly clumsy?"

Evelyn shakes her head, then hands the paper to her husband to look over.  He reaches to take it from her, but drops his hand away at the last second before he can grasp the paper.  Instead, he shoots his wife a dark look.  "We keep to ourselves," he says flatly.  Garrett Jacob Hobbs' voice is a low rasp, and it makes the hair at the back of Will's neck stand on end.  "We didn't see anything."  Evelyn sets the paper back on the table; Hobbs slaps his hand down on top of it and pushes it back across towards Will.  

Hannibal jumps in, fixing his gaze on the Hobbs' daughter.  "Abigail, what about you?"

"N-no," she says, stammering at first under the weight of both her father's and Hannibal's attention on her.  "I babysat for their boys sometimes, but not recently.  That's the only time I really spend with them, when I'm over there with the kids."

"We never even knew anything was wrong until the screaming started," Evelyn adds.  Her husband's expression grows murderous.  "It's so sad, that beautiful family.  They never should have gone like that.  So cruel."

Will is growing more frustrated by the minute.  He can guess that Evelyn would be far more forthcoming if her husband weren't there glowering at her every time she opened her mouth.  "In extreme outbreaks like these, it's very important to determine timelines, so that we can determine your level of risk of infection.  Are you _positive_ that you didn't come into physical contact with the Farrells any time in the past three weeks?"

"Like I said," Hobbs says, then pauses to cough. A thick, wet sound rattles in his chest.  "We keep to ourshelves."

Will's head immediately snaps up and he stares at Hobbs, hard.

"We sheep to ourshel-- we keep to ourshells-- we-- we-- our--"  At his seat at the table, Hobbs' hands start twitching, balling into fists, smacking on the table. He mutters nonsense syllables under his breath. Evelyn and Abigail stare dumbly at him, not sure what's happening.

"I need everyone to back away from the table very slowly," Will whispers.  "No sudden movements, no loud noises.  Just, everybody calm."

Abigail does as she's told, slipping out of her chair and taking a few quiet steps back, until she's pressed up against the sink.

Evelyn has a little more trouble with the instructions.

"Honey?" she says, leaning towards her husband, one hand outstretched to hover just over his shoulder.  "Honey, are you okay?"  She turns to look at Hannibal and Will, panic making her eyes large.  "I think he's having a stroke, there's something wrong!"

Hobbs' head lolls forward and he moans.  It is a low, terrifying sound, like hell on earth, and everyone in that room knows that Garret Jacob Hobbs is not having a stroke.

"Mrs. Hobbs, I suggest you step away from the table," Hannibal says calmly.  He hasn't even broken a sweat and the only indication that he is even marginally worried about the situation is that he has backed his chair up a few more inches from the table.  While Will's eyes are glued on Hobbs, the real danger in the room, Hannibal stares hard at Evelyn and Abigail.

"Now, Mrs. Hobbs, please."  Will is very close to begging her.  Everyone has backed away from the table save Evelyn, who is living in denial and who is going to die in denial if she doesn't move.  Slowly, Will reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket, searching for his cell phone.  Not for the first time, he wished that field scientists were permitted to carry handguns.  Instead, he has to call for help and hope that no one dies in the interim.

Hobbs groans and digs his fingers into the table.  It's solid wood, mid-century, quality made and it's still starting to splinter with the force he's pressing with.  Not taking his eyes off of the man, Will slides his finger across the screen of his phone and clicks blindly through the menus, letting muscle memory guide him to the icon which will automatically call Jack.

"What's going on up there, Will?" calls out Jack's voice, tinny and staticky through the phone's tiny speaker.

"We have a situation."

"What kind of situation?"

Will doesn't get a chance to answer.  Hobbs moans, turns, and lunges for Evelyn.  Will scrambles backwards, his chair toppling to the ground as he hurries to get away.  He doesn't fully process what Hannibal does, or why it should feel so strange to him, but from the corner of his eye, he notices that Hannibal very calmly gets up and takes a step back behind his chair, then another.  Every movement is calculated and unhurried.  Will is too panicked to think about this.

Evelyn screams and beats on her husband's chest with her fists, but he is much stronger than her, now moreso than ever.  His teeth tear into the flesh of her throat and the sounds she makes quickly turn into a wet, sick gurgle.  Any answer Will could have given Jack is now irrelevant.  Jack knows exactly what kind of situation Hannibal and Will have found themselves in.

Abigail presses her hands over her mouth, holding in a scream, as she tries to stay out of her father’s sight.  Her mother is silent now, and the only sounds left in the room are the terrible noises Hobbs makes as he feeds.  Will urgently tries to catch Abigail’s eye, but her gaze is locked on the thrashing, bloody mess that was her parents.  She has backed herself into a corner, and the only way out is through them.

“Will, we have to go,” Hannibal whispers.  He reaches out, fingers just brushing the sleeve of Will’s coat to draw his attention.  “Without delay. We risk active infection by waiting, Will.”

Will stands his ground.  “Abigail,” he says softly, pleadingly.  “Abigail, look at me.”

She does, oh so slowly, and their eyes meet.  “What do I do?” she asks.  Her voice is barely above a whisper; Will lip-reads more than hears her words.

“Will.”  Hannibal again, his eyes slanted towards the door.  Hobbs hasn’t stirred, distracted as he is by his meal, but soon he’ll be done, and he will want a new source of sustenance.

 The plan comes to Will in a rush.  “The window, over the counter.”  He gestures at the window, and takes a step backwards, towards the door, at the same time.  “Get up there.  We’ll get you out. From the outside.”  

Abigail says nothing, does nothing, just continues staring straight ahead, studiously avoiding any glances at her parents.  

“Do you understand, Abigail?” Hannibal’s voice somehow cuts through her fear to reach her, and she nods stiffly.  “Good.  Will?”  Hannibal’s hand lands on Will’s shoulder and before Will even comprehends what is happening, he is being tugged backwards, to the front door of the house.

Once outside, he hears a staticky, tinny voice in the distance.  Jack; the phone call is still connected, but Will had forgotten all about it.  “Talk to me, Will!” shouts Jack from miles and miles away.  

Will’s hand trembles as he lifts the phone to his ear.  “Hobbs is compromised.  Full blown infection.  He’s attacked his wife, the daughter is trapped inside.”

“The quarantine team is on its way, Will, just stay put,” Jack commands.  “Were you or Dr. Lecter exposed?”

Will isn’t listening; he is staggering around to the back of the house, looking for the kitchen window.  “I’ve got to get her out, Jack, there isn’t enough time for quarantine to get here.”  Will  spots the window, sees Abigail’s shoulders pressed back up against it.  “I’m not going to let her die.”  

“Will, don’t,” Jack implores, but Will just slides the phone back into his pocket.  He doesn’t have time for Jack, not when their only source of information left on this outbreak is likely mere moments away from being ripped apart.  

“I’ve got to get her out of there,” he repeats, mostly to himself.  Hannibal has followed Will at a distance and hangs back, just watching to see what the other man will do.  Will crouches, finds a rock amongst the shrubbery and mulch, and eyes up the kitchen window.  He can just barely see Abigail, now cowering in the corner just beyond the window, but he thinks if he manages to break open  the window, that she could make her escape.

Will cocks his arm to throw, but before he can, he’s stopped by Hannibal, who clamps his hand hard around Will’s wrist.  “Don’t,” he says, tugging Will’s arm down.  “Hobbs is watching.”

Sure enough, when Will focuses, he sees Hobbs, covered in blood, slowly rising to stand.  His movements are stiff and uncoordinated, but Will swears that Hobbs is staring right at them.

“Get out of there, Abigail,” Will says, mostly to himself, then repeats it, more loudly, as Hobbs finds his balance and takes a lumbering step towards his daughter.  “Abigail! Get out of there!” Will shouts.

Abigail, whether by coincidence or not, turns towards the window, eyes wide with fear.  “The window, open the window!”  Will gestures at the window and tries to free himself from Hannibal’s grasp.

Abigail takes a step towards the window, hands outstretched, fumbling with the lock.

Hobbs lunges, and Abigail goes down.

The last thing Will sees is her hand slide down the windowpane, followed by a spray of blood.

***

Quarantine.

People who go into quarantine almost never leave.  Will knows that, statistically, he is an anomaly, that he came out from quarantine, mostly whole.

People who go into quarantine almost never have visitors.  Fear is a powerful motivator, after all.

But in the room at the end of the corridor, Will Graham sits sentry at the foot of Abigail Hobbs’ bed.  She’s hooked up to machines that are doing all of the work for her, while her body focuses on healing.

Her father tried to rip her apart, and only time will tell if she’s infected, too.

For now, Will waits.  Even though he shouldn’t get this close to his research, to the victims.

But Abigail is a survivor, Will knows it.  

So he waits.

***

Will hunches over his computer.  He thinks that if he stares at it long enough, the report he’s reading will say something different.

 

> _To: Graham, Will; Crawford, Jack_  
>  _From: Katz, Beverly  
> _ _Re: Lab work_
> 
> _Gentlemen, official results from CDC on 3057 and 3058. 3059 pending and under observation. Recovery from wounds and blood transfusions delaying official results on her. Asymptomatic at the moment. Internal affairs is already asking about the L07 results and wants to come in. Jack, expect a call.   -BK_
> 
> _R-3057 (Deceased)_  
>  _Adult male, spontaneous infection, no known triggers_  
>  _COD: GSW  
> _ _Strain: confirmed Langley-07_
> 
> _R-3058 (Deceased)_  
>  _Adult female, infected via physical attack from R-3057, deceased before full infection occurred_  
>  _COD: massive blood loss/internal injuries  
> _ _Strain: confirmed Langley-07_
> 
> _R-3059 (Quarantined)  
> _ _Teenage female, visible bite and claw wounds, no current signs of infection  
> _ _Strain: pending_

Two dead on his watch, on his research circuit.  Will finds a thousand reasons to blame himself.  He should have gotten Abigail out of there sooner, the first time Hobbs stuttered.  He should have visited the Hobbs family sooner.  He should have known this was going to happen.  He couldn’t even focus on his fury that it was _his_ strain of the virus that had decimated the Hobbs family, not when Abigail was under armed guard in quarantine, with injuries that he should have been able to prevent.

A knock at the door only barely draws Will’s attention away from the email.  “Go away,” Will calls out.  “I’m not interested in talking about it.”

The click of heels against the tile floor tells him that his visitor is determined to stay, and he finally looks up to see Alana Bloom making her way across the room.  “How long have we known each other, Will?” She crosses to Will’s desk and clears away some papers so that she can perch on the corner of it.  “You’re never interested in talking about it.”

His body language softens around Alana, though, and he slowly lets the tension seep out of his body.  “I’ve lost control of my own lab, Alana, why would I possibly want to talk about it?” He sounds resigned; his impassioned anger is gone for now.  

“Because eventually, Internal Affairs is going to bring in all of their big scary security guys to talk to you about what’s going on.  And maybe you should get some of this out of your head now, before you’re sitting across a desk from an ex-Fed.” She is blunt, but Will appreciates it, and, at the end of the day, he’ll let Alana get away with speaking to him in ways he’d never tolerate from anyone else.

“I don’t have an answer for them, Alana.  Hobbs wasn’t sick, and then he was.  Everything about it was pure Langley, but I’ve been over the security logs, Jack’s been over the CCTV footage, and no one has been in or out of that vault without reason.  None of what happened makes any sense, there haven’t been any security breaches.  There’s no logical explanation.”

“There is, Will.”  Alana’s voice is low, soothing.  She stops short of reaching out and touching Will, her hand hovering outstretched before she drops it back down into her lap.  “There’s got to be an explanation, we just can’t see it yet.”

“A family -- most of a neighborhood -- was wiped out because of something that I helped create.  Even if I didn’t break security protocol, there’s a girl locked up in quarantine, who watched her parents die, because I couldn’t stop it.”

She does make contact with Will then, her fingers only barely resting against his shoulder.  “Will, what could you have done? You’re a scientist, not a soldier.  You did what we’re all trained to do: evaluate the situation, get yourself and your staff out safely, and call for help.  Abigail’s got the best care possible here.  If anyone can get her through this, it’s our med staff.”

“I should have been able to do something, I should have been able to get her out.”

“Stop beating yourself up, Will.”  Alana’s hand closes more firmly over his shoulder now.  “There was nothing else you could have done.  What happened was a terrible thing, but you and Hannibal made the right calls. She’ll pull through.”

Will looks up at Alana and makes eye contact, albeit fleetingly, with her, and then pulls away.  “What if she pulls through, only to become a monster?”

Alana sighs, then slides off of Will’s desk to stand again.  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.  Now take a break, go home, get your mind off of this before you burn yourself out.”

He laughs bitterly.  Wil was burnt out before he even went back into the field, but Jack didn’t care about that.  He never did.  “Is that an order, Dr. Bloom?”

“If it needs to be, Will, then, yes.  That’s an order.”

A tiny smile tugs awkwardly at Will’s lips.  “I’ll try.”

She smiles back, fondly.  “Good night, Will.”

***

“Burning the midnight oil, Mr. Graham?” Hannibal doesn’t bother knocking on Will’s door anymore; he just comes right in and sits down.

“Going over the lab results from Katz and company,” Will responds.  He picks a folder up from a stack on his desk and extends it towards Hannibal.  “This doesn’t make sense.”

Hannibal takes the folder and flips through it, not pausing for too long on any of the sheets. He’s seen most of the data before, anyway.  What’s new now is Will.  “Would you care to talk about it?” Hannibal sounds a touch awkward when he asks, as if he’s not accustomed to engaging in this sort of back-and-forth with anyone else.

“Not really,” Will says sullenly, but he pushes his laptop aside and clears the space on the desk between himself and Hannibal.  He doesn’t want to talk about it, but maybe Hannibal will listen in a way that Jack and the others stopped doing long ago.

“Look here, these are the original reports, when we were working on Langley in the lab, before it got out.  Average time between exposure and acute infection was just ten minutes.  The incubation period is insignificant at best, and it didn’t change at all once it got out in the wild.  You get exposed -- someone bites you, scratches you, breathes on you wrong -- and you’re sick, _bam_ , just like that.”  Will reaches into the folder and shuffles the pages around, flipping to some of the pages closer to the end.  “But now, even though the current Langley strain is completely identical -- there is absolutely nothing different about any of the markers we’re seeing -- it looks like people are taking hours, days, even, to show symptoms. There’s no reason whatsoever for this, nothing, nothing in the paperwork or blood tests or the research.”

Hannibal is quiet for a while, almost as if he hasn’t heard what Will has said.  He takes the papers and thumbs through them. “It’s mutated, then.”  He’s very matter-of-fact.  He doesn’t even need to read the reports.

“No, it hasn’t.”  WIll doesn’t hide the bite in his voice, the tense snap to his words.  “There’s no evidence of mutation, none whatsoever.”

“Maybe you just aren’t looking in the right places,” Hannibal points out.  “Perhaps the machines aren’t calibrated correctly, perhaps your lab assistants are doing it wrong, perhaps you just don’t want to see it.”  He casts the papers aside, uninterested in what they actually say.  “Your data says one thing; your experience says another.  Clearly one of them is wrong.  A very subtle mutation would explain the delayed onset -- one part of code in the virus, one part out of millions has possibly gone wrong.  It would make sense that someone has simply overlooked the truth of the matter.”

Will doesn’t like being told that he’s wrong, or that his team’s wrong.  If Hannibal is so convinced that there’s a mutation in the virus, Will wonders why he doesn’t look for it himself?  He’s supposed to be there to help Will’s team and their investigations, but this isn’t being helpful.  “There’s got to be something I’m missing.”

Hannibal just tuts at him sadly, like he doesn’t believe the words that he says next.  “Everyone here has great faith in your ability, Will.  I’m sure you’ll find the missing piece.  It’s probably right under your nose.”  

They sit in silence for a time, Hannibal and Will reading their respective paperwork, before Hannibal speaks up again.  “You still haven’t ruled out sabotage, have you?” he asks abruptly.

“Not in the slightest.”

“It would be a fascinating solution to the matter, wouldn’t it?”

Will’s attention perks up and he glances at Hannibal over the top of the pages he’s flipping through.  “Tell me more.”

Hannibal raises his shoulders in the tiniest of shrugs.  “It’s elegant, in a way, someone so hating another -- another person, another religion, another way of life, anything -- so badly as to desire to destroy it.  Don’t you think?”

Will considers this.  “No, no, if this is -- if someone is intentionally doing this, intentionally creating this problem, it’s not out of hate.”

“If not hate, then what?  Not love, certainly.”  Hannibal’s mouth forms the word as if love is an utterly foreign concept.

“Curiosity.  A sheer, morbid curiosity, like poking an agitated animal just to see what it would do.  I don’t think this is hate; I think this is arrogance, someone trying to prove that they’re smarter, better, stronger.”

There’s that smile again, tight lipped but with a hint of malice.  “I couldn’t possibly say, Will,” he says evenly, “but it’s a fascinating idea.”

***

Months pass, and every time Will thinks his team has a handle on their work, a new hotbed of the Langley-07 strain pops up.

Connecticut.  Will and team are doing an inquiry on an outbreak of Rosen-Hartford, when an entire housing development needs to be quarantined because of Langley.

West Virginia, an investigation into the patient zero behind a new mutation out of Wheeling, when Langley sweeps across the WVU campus.

Maryland, a rapid spreading virus related to Shaw-Towson, an outbreak in Baltimore.

It’s always the same, every time.

Will and Hannibal do door-to-door interviews, and before Will can even file a report in the case, there’s a new outbreak haunting him.

The work is constant, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult for Will to stay focused.  He logs only a few hours of sleep a night before he’s back in a car or on a plane, dreading the next trip, the next round of interviews and blood tests and behavioral questionnaires, the next family he can’t save.

He blames a lot of strange things on stress.

In Toledo, Ohio, Will spends ten minutes staring at his customary list of symptoms in front of the surviving members of a minor-league hockey team.  He loses his train of thought midway through his questions, and Hannibal has to finish the interview for him as Will stares blankly at the papers.

“Can you remember when you saw the Williamseseseses?” he says to a young couple in Bloomington, Indiana, his mouth getting stuck on the last syllable of the victims’ family name.  He has to dig his fingers into his thigh and focus on the sharp pain in order to get himself to stop, and he blames the temporary stutter on sleep deprivation.

In State College, Pennsylvania, Will struggles to ask simple questions to a group of young, terrified waitresses.  “When did you notice Sally’s simpsons?” he says, then stops, realizing the last word came out wrong. “Cymbals. Simians.”  He presses his hands to his forehead, wiping away slick beads of sweat.  “ _Symptoms_ ,” he finally spits out, through clenched teeth. His hands tremble as he lowers them back down to the table. “Sally’s symptoms, Sally’s symptoms.” As if repeating it would help. His _s_ sounds are drawn out, long sibilant hisses of air coming from deep within Will.

The women back away from the table, en masse. The last time they saw someone do this, it was Sally, and she ate most of their assistant manager’s internal organs before a tactical team brought her down.

“Will.” His name emerges from Hannibal’s lips like a question.  He almost sounds concerned.   _Almost_.  Will doesn’t respond, just keeps making his low hissing noises.  “Ladies, please excuse Mr. Graham,” Hannibal says apologetically, trying to act like Will hissing, his skin gone ghost-pale, is a normal occurrence.  “I assure you, everything is fine, he’s just extraordinarily sleep deprived.  Shall we table the interview for now? I doubt we will accomplish anything else today.”

Through it all, a shark smile pulls at Hannibal’s mouth, and a dark gleam takes hold in his eyes.

The interview is cancelled.  Will shakes and hisses, like a leaky air mattress, the entire way down Atherton to their hotel.

Hannibal calls Jack and says that the interview was pointless, the waitresses didn’t remember anything unusual, and there were no security cameras at the restaurant.  Another dead end.

The next day, as Will huddles under his scratchy hotel blankets, he gets a call from Jack.  An entire floor of government workers in Bellefonte are suspected of having Langley-07.

At least Will has stopped hissing, deflating.

***

Back in Virginia, Hannibal doesn’t bring up Will’s latest incident, for which Will is grateful, but it’s getting harder for him to hide that there is something wrong with him, something worse than a lack of sleep, too much coffee, and a terrible diet.

Hannibal, for some reason, is helping Will hide the problems that he’s having.  He invents reasons for them to have to go off-site, he practically bullies people into staying out of Will’s lab when they’re in.  Will hates it sometimes, but whenever he’s wearing three coats and a hat and still shivering uncontrollably at his desk, he doesn’t mind so much that Hannibal has chosen to run interference.

He can’t hide forever, though, and eventually, Alana gets tired of it and sneaks into Will’s office to wait for him to arrive.

He’s late to work that morning, and he walks with a limp that he didn’t have the day before.  Will’s left leg drags behind him almost uselessly, and every step is a labored struggle.  He’s so intent on not being seen by anyone in the hallways that he doesn’t even notice Alana, seated at his workstation.

Once he’s locked the office door behind him and triple checked to ensure that the blinds are all drawn, he turns to his desk, and only then does he notice Alana.  

The average person would startle at the intrusion, but Will is not your average person, and he is even more off his game, now that his entire body seems to be falling apart, that his brain is on fire, that he’s not all there anymore.  He gasps quietly instead, then opens his mouth to speak, but only a low hiss comes out.

Alana looks unfathomably sad.  “The rumor mill said that you were really sick, Will, but I didn’t expect this.”  With each word, it sounds like her heart is breaking.

He coughs, a wet rattle in his chest, and drags himself over to the tattered armchair in the corner.  Words come slowly.  “I’ll get better,” he says, taking care to pronounce each word instead of slurring them together.  “I’m just so tired.”

“Will.”  She sighs heavily and shakes her head.  “Will, you and I both know that this isn’t just being tired, or the flu, or anything like that.  This is something so much worse.”

“Alana.”  Will sinks down into the armchair and tucks his knees up to his chest.  He looks so exhausted, so young, and so scared right then.  “Alana, I’ll be fine.”

“You need to see someone.”

Will sits up and stares at her; his eyes are bloodshot.  He doesn’t look like he’s slept in a week.  “ _No_.”  His denial is emphatic.  “No, none of the doctors here, no one, no one can know, they’ll start to suspect something.”  The more he speaks, the easier the words come out, but he still gets stuck on his s-sounds, and he grimaces at the way the end of his sentence comes out.

“To hell with people _suspecting_ something, Will!” She bolts out of her chair and stalks across the floor to stand in front of him.  “I don’t care what people think.  You are putting your life in danger, not to mention everyone else around you.”

“I’m _not_ infected, Alana.  If I were, don’t you think I’d be dead already?”

“Jack already thinks you’ve been infected, with _something_ , maybe it’s a new strain.  Will, be honest, you haven’t been the same since the Hobbs house.”

“Because I watched a man rip apart his wife in the Hobbs house,” Will spits back bitterly.  “Because there’s a girl stuck in quarantine, and maybe she’s never going to wake up, and it’s my fault, because I didn’t see what was going on with Garrett Jacob Hobbs before it was too late.  I know you don’t get out of the lab much, _Dr. Bloom_ , but out in the _real world_ , the real world that Jack forced me back out into, by the way, when I was perfectly happy staying here, staying _safe_ \-- out there, I have seen a lot of things that are making me not the same anymore.”

His rant is the most he’s spoken in days, if not since he first started feeling ill, and it exhausts him.  Will sags back into the chair and, desperate to get out of the intense pressure of Alana’s gaze, he pulls his phone from his pocket and begins angrily poking at the screen.

Alana reaches for the phone to try to draw it away, like he’s a sullen child. It’s a fair assessment, even if Will hates it.  “Will, we’re all worried about you.  You know this infection better than anyone else.  If you think you’ve been exposed--”

“I _haven’t_.”  His fingers clench tight around his cell phone.  He thinks he may drop it, if he doesn’t hold on for dear life.  Drop it, or throw it, maybe.  Hurl it into a wall, because everyone is second guessing him, even Alana, who has thrown professional caution to the wind to stand behind him, to protect him, even when she didn’t think he was aware of her involvement.  “I would know, Alana.  I’ve taken every precaution.  Jack is just … misguided.  Confused.  And I’m just tired.  I’m working twenty-hour days up here.  I have to figure this out, Alana, I have to know why this keeps happening.  I have to know who’s sabotaging my lab.”

“Jack says--”

“I don’t _care_ what Jack says!”  He flinches at the volume of his voice; he swears he hears his words bounce off of the bare walls of the lab.  “I don’t care what he thinks, or what he wants me to work on now.  We’ve had seven outbreaks of Langley in the past eight months.  It’s beyond impossible, it’s preposterous, it’s _offensive_ , and it’s not happening on its own.  I don’t buy Dr. Lecter’s explanation, I need something better.”

“But what he’s saying is possible, Will, based on the data he passed on to us from the Duluth field office.  Hobbs’ infection could have been dormant until something triggered it.  Exposure to Marks-Valley, an unrelated dip in his immune system, something.”

“Anything other than someone deliberately releasing the most potent strain of the virus whenever we’re already there investigating something else, right?”  Will’s words are sharp, bitter.  He is so very tired of being doubted on this.  

Alana is infinitely patient with Will, and despite his goading, doesn’t raise her voice to him again.  She speaks in that perfectly soothing, neutral tone which made her a natural leader in her own lab. “That’s the worst case scenario, the nuclear option.  Let Internal Affairs figure that out.  You focus on making sure that _you’re_ okay.  We’ve already lost too many people, Will.”

Will shuts down.  “I’m fine.  I’m going to continue to be fine.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”

Alana reaches out to pat his shoulder, then thinks better of it -- she thinks of Will, shaking and stuttering and hollow -- and she draws back.  “You know how to find me, if you need me.”

***

Everything changes in Durham.

“Can you review this lost of cymbals?” he asks.  “When did your nay-sayer get ick?”

Hannibal, who usually steps in by now, lets Will keep going.  In fact, he shifts his chair back and away from Will, instead.  

Will presses the heels of his hands against his forehead and groans.  It’s supposed to be a frustrated noise, but instead, it sounds terrifying, a low rattle in his chest, and when he drops his hands away, his eyes are vacant, and he’s lost the ability to create words.  

“Mr. and Mrs. Lundqvist,” Hannibal says coolly, evenly, “I need you to step very slowly away from the table.  It seems that our friend Will here is unwell.”

The frightened couple do as Hannibal says, and they are out of the way just before Will lunges at the table, hands curled into claws as he tries to grab for them.

***

The tactical team arrives with a suspicious amount of haste.  The sound of sirens and screeching tires split the air only moments after he upends the heavy oak dining table, in shaky pursuit of the Lundqvists.  There’s no way that they were able to arrive so quickly -- Hannibal hasn’t even reached for his phone yet, and the Lundqvists are too distracted by their efforts to stay alive -- but no one questions it.  

Per standard protocol, the tactical team brings Will down with the judicious application of a stun gun.

Per standard protocol, Will and the Lundqvists are brought to quarantine.  The Lundqvists are released quickly.  Will is not.

Per standard protocol for lab employees, a clean sweep is done of his office, his workstation, and his home.  And there is where Will’s nightmare comes true.

***

Will wakes to the steady, soothing beep and whirr of machines.  The room is white, sterile.  It’s a clean room.  This is not where he expected to wake up.  This is quarantine.  He’s been here before, and he never wanted to be back.   His heart sinks to realize that he is sick _again_ , and he can’t even find comfort in the fact that he is still _alive_ , because Jack Crawford sits in the chair next to the bed, a grave expression on his face.

“I thought I could trust you, Will,” he says flatly.  “All these years, I went to bat for you.”

Will, groggy, disoriented, doesn’t know how to respond.  “Good morning to you, too, Jack,” he says with a false cheerfulness, one that he knows Jack will see right through.

“What’s the standard protocol for active infection in an employee here?” Jack asks.  

“Quarantine, retrace last steps, tac team sweep.”  His words creak and rattle; it’s been ages since he’s spoken, and the rawness in his throat and the burning in his chest suggests that he hasn’t been breathing on his own for very long.  

“Do you want to know what the team found when they went through your house, Will?”

Will misses his home, the little ramshackle refuge he created for himself, his metaphorical boat on a quiet lake, his freedom.  Will wants to go back there.  “Lots of dust and bad Chinese food?”  He smiles, weakly, but Jack’s face is as grim as he’s ever seen it.

Jack flips open a folder and hands it to Will.  “Take a look.”  They’re photos from the team’s sweep of his home, and yes, there are the cartons of outdated take-out and the beer that’s been in the refrigerator for years, and Will nearly makes a comment about his lack of adequate housekeeping, but his words die in his throat when he flips to the next set of photos.

An accumulation of glass vials, straight from Will’s workroom, empty.  The serial numbers on the vials all begin with L07.

Empty syringes.

Personal profiles of every individual that Will has interviewed, since returning to the field.

Google search history, looking for directions to WVU, to the arts centre in Baltimore, to that government building in Bellefonte.  Time stamps, showing that Will searched for this information long before the outbreaks were discovered.

“What is this?” Will asks.

“I thought I could trust you.  I put this lab on your shoulders, Will, and maybe it was too much.”  Jack seems infinitely sad, and that hurts Will more than this accumulation of evidence that he doesn’t quite understand yet.  “Why, Will?  Do you know how many people have died, Will, because of this?”

“What are you saying, Jack?”  His voice is quiet, thin.  He wishes to be intubated again, so that he doesn’t have to speak.

“The Langley outbreaks, Will.  IA knows, the Feds know.  We know it was you.  It was you all along.”

***

Will lies in his hospital bed, wrists handcuffed to the handrails.  

He’s not going to panic.

He lifts his arms, testing the cuffs.  They’re secure.  He can’t even lift his hands high enough to touch his face, let alone do anything destructive, and he doesn’t have enough leverage to be able to force either hand out of the cuffs.

He is _not_ going to panic.  

There’s a tap at the door and Will startles, straining against the cuffs as he tries to slide further up the bed.  The door swings open and Alana enters, a sad smile on her face.  She’s in full protective gear, down to the goggles and face mask.  Will can just barely see her eyes behind the plastic lenses.  Her eyes are red; she’s been crying.  “Hey,” she says softly, voice muffled by the mask.  

The door swings shut behind Alana with a soft click.  She wrings her hands in front of her, gloves making a soft squelching sound as she does.  Will can hear her breathe in, as if she’s about to speak, but she doesn't end up saying anything.  The only sound is the soft whirr and hum of the various machines Will is hooked up to.

Will breaks the silence.  "I feel … underdressed."  

She chuckles, but there's a broken hitch in her laughter. "I know.  I tried to insist that I didn't need to suit up, that everyone was just being overly cautious with you now, but … I wasn’t up for that fight.  You're out of the woods, according to the bloodwork Hannibal pulled the other day."

"More like out of the frying pan, into the fire," Will muses, and raises his left arm, handcuffs clinking against the railing for emphasis.  "Let me guess: no signs of continued infection, and so once all my vitals return to normal, I'll be shipped off somewhere much, much worse."

"Will, it's more complicated than that."  

He struggles to sit up in bed.  He'd hoped that Alana would visit, but not like this, not if she was going to side. with Jack and Hannibal and everyone who had accused him of these terrible things  "Of course it is, _somebody_ has made sure it's more complicated than that.  Alana, you _know_ I'm not responsible for what they say I did."

"You were very sick, for a very long time, Will."  She speaks slowly.  Her words are measured.  She knows Will too well now, and knows what to expect from him in conversation.  "No one's blaming you.  We're blaming ourselves for letting things get so bad for you.  I blame myself."

"I can tell you who to blame."  Will's words are bitter, harsh, and he doesn't bother to hide it anymore. “Blame Jack, for putting me back out there, when I said no.”

"Will, don't," Alana warns.  "We'll get you the help you need, the best lawyer, and we'll deal with this.  There is some past precedent for crimes committed while actively infected with the virus."

Will sags back down against the mattress and closes his eyes.  Alana was his last line of defense, and if she doesn't believe him, then he's truly on his own.  "You believe that, too, then.  You believe that I'm a murderer, a terrorist, a traitor?"

" _No_ , Will, I don't."  Alana's voice is heavy, and Will doesn't need to look at her again to know that she's near tears.  "I think you were just confused.  We’ve seen this before.  People get infected with rare strains of this and do unspeakable things.  If we catch it early enough, we can treat them, we can bring them back.  We rehabilitate them."

Will speaks fast, angry, bitter.  “You rehabilitate them, and then send them to trial to pay for the crimes they committed while ill, yes, Alana, I know.  I’ve been deposed at those trials, I know how it goes.  A jury of one’s peers doesn’t care about loss of cognitive function or genetic predisposition to illness or the fact that you really, _really_ didn’t mean to do it.  They care about the fact that little Suzie got her face gnawed off by a meat suit who used to be her Uncle.”

“Will, it will be different this time.”  She’s clutching at straws and they both know it.

“Why, because I’m so sympathetic?”  He laughs -- not at her, not intending to be cruel -- but at the irony of the entire situation.  “Don’t lie to me.  This isn’t going to be any different. Of all those poor, sad souls who you’ve rehabilitated in your trauma lab, how many of them have been acquitted?”

She hesitates.  She takes a step backwards.  

“How many?”  

“Will…”  She is pleading.

“ _How many_ , Alana!”  He shouts; his voice is rough and ragged from disuse and anger and fear.

“You’re scaring me, Will.”  Her hand is on the doorknob, but she can’t bring herself to leave.

“Only one, Alana, only _one_ of those cases has ever ended in anything other than a guilty verdict or an insanity plea.  And that one was a fourteen year old boy who, if you’ll remember, the jury thought had ‘suffered enough’, given that he’d chewed off his own hands when eating most of his family wasn’t enough for him.”

“You’re not like the rest of them, Will, your case is different, you’ll see, I promise.”

He tries to raise his hand up to gesture for her to stop talking, but the handcuffs pull against his wrist and stop him.  “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Alana.  It’s not worth it.”  He's not resigned to his fate -- a stint in federal prison, ending with a lethal injection, most assuredly -- but instead is resigned to the fact that he's going to have to do this all on his own.  "You can go now, Alana."

"Will, don't--"

"You don't want to be associated with the likes of me," he says, finally raising his head back up to look at her.  He wants to fix this in his mind, Alana standing at the foot of his bed, tears silently rolling down her face, one hand outstretched, reaching for him but never quite connecting.  "I'm a monster, that's what they're saying.  I know.  So you should just go."  

She takes one step back, and then another, and before he knows it, she’s gone.

***

Will’s been told that today is the day, that the promise of _much, much worse_ is close to being fully realized. He’s fully cleared to leave quarantine, which means that now, instead of worrying about a relapse, he has to worry about jail, about murder and treason and the electric chair.

But first, one last visitor.  His captors -- the FBI, the CDC, _Jack_ \-- have been gracious enough to allow him this, and he thinks it’s going to be Alana, with her sad eyes and her newfound reluctance to touch him.

Instead, it is Hannibal Lecter, with his blunt suits and his cold eyes and his sharp smile.

“You’re not who I was expecting,” Will says, when Hannibal comes to stand at the foot of his bed.

“Call it a small, personal indulgence.” Hannibal’s hands curl around the bedframe.  His smile is satisfied, self-importance.  “A scientific curiosity.”

“Come to watch the lamb, sent to slaughter?”

“I’ve never known an accused domestic terrorist before.”  The smile goes wider, and Will feels a chill course through his body.  He has never seen a smile quite so terrifying as Hannibal Lecter’s.  He goes to sit up, but the movement is hampered by the handcuffs, still securely around his wrists.

He is too exhausted to even offer up a good defense, and he doesn’t think he should have to, not to the people who know him best.  “I’m not--”

“Will, Will, you don’t have to lie anymore.”  

“It’s _not_ a lie.  I didn’t do what they’re saying, I would never.”

“Your arrogance is showing, Will.”  Hannibal sounds almost sad, for all that he has ever expressed anything approaching an emotion.  “You said once that this hypothetical saboteur was arrogant, Will.  I’m saddened that I didn’t see you for what you were.  I wish --”  He turns away then, and a thought forms in the back of Will’s head that this is all a calculated act, and it sends a chill up his spine.  “I wish you could have trusted me, to ask for help.  I would have been a light to guide you away from these thoughts, Will.”

Will laughs roughly.  He sounds practically manic, the laugh high and cracked and not quite right.  “You can go now, Dr. Lecter,” he says, and this time, he means it, unlike when he’d turned Alana away.

“Let me help you, Will,” Hannibal repeats.  “I think we understand one another.”

“You can go now,” Will says, and then pointedly looks away.

***

The pieces slot into place for Will when he’s being checked out of quarantine.  He’s unsteady on his feet, muscles week after being bedridden for so long, and he sways under the strong arms of the guards propping him up.

He thinks about Hannibal, and his nice-sounding words about trust and guiding lights, and Will wonders where he was being guided.  

He is being read his rights, but he doesn’t care, he just waits until the officer in front of him is done talking.  “Do you have any questions?” the man asks.

“Yes.”  Will does -- just one question, though, a request, more specifically.  He pitches forward, held back only by the guards’ strong arms, and leans dangerously close to the officer.

“I want to speak to Hannibal Lecter.”

A slow smile spreads across Will’s face.  It is the mirrored twin to Hannibal’s wolfish grin, and Will’s face is terrible and mad with it, with the realization that was months and months in the making.  This is a dangerous game he has been forced to play, but he will play it, and he will play it well.

This time, Will Graham will make the first move.

 

 


End file.
